1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to on-vehicle devices and, more specifically, to an on-vehicle device equipped with a storage unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicles are generally equipped with an on-vehicle audio device to the portion of an installment panel or a console panel. Users can have fun listening to music by the audio device reproducing CDs (compact disks), for example, and by speakers or others incorporated in doors outputting the reproduced audio. Assuming that the audio device is equipped therein with a large-capacity memory exemplified by a hard disk or others, the users write and store their favorite music data into the hard disk, and the music becomes available for the users to listen when the written music data is reproduced through reproduction of the hard disk.
With a vehicle navigation device incorporated on the installment panel or the console panel, and with a display unit of the vehicle navigation device indicating the position of the vehicle by an arrow or others on the map, the users can know correctly the route to the destination. If such a vehicle navigation device is equipped with a large-capacity memory exemplified by a hard disk or others, it becomes possible to input any data customized by the users' preferences, e.g., marks on the map, and address book.
If such a vehicle audio device or a vehicle navigation device is replaced with a new one respectively, it means that the data written on the hard disk of the current device will be discarded. If the data is to be transferred to a recording medium of the new vehicle audio device or vehicle navigation device, before such data transfer, the data on the hard disk of the current device will have to be once moved to any other recording medium, e.g., any portable storage unit of CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read-Only Memory), semiconductor memory, or others.
If the data is to be discarded on the hard disk of the current device, it is necessary to take the trouble to write the data again to the hard disk of the new device. If the data is to be moved to any portable recording medium, in accordance with some capacity of the memory, the need arises to use the recording medium repeatedly for several times for moving the data. Such a trouble caused by moving the data is considered a drawback.
Patent Document 1 (JP-A-2004-94755) describes a data transfer device that is configured to include: a unit for reading only control information and any predetermined portion required for data access on a storage device; and a unit for transferring thus read control information and predetermined portion to another storage device for writing and copying thereto. Such a data transfer device implements high-speed transfer of a large amount of data while preventing head seeking or others from frequently occurring. This is achieved by reading and transferring only the control information and any predetermined portion of the storage device for writing them into another storage device being a transfer destination, and by copying only the control information and the predetermined portion needed for data access with no concern for files on the storage device.